


Witticisms

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Confessions, Crushes, Explicit Language, Fluff, Happy Ending, Internal Monologue, M/M, Melodramatic musings, No Plot/Plotless, Pining, Teenage Drama, pining?, well mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 21:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21288143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: In which there is a movie night, plenty of introspection, and eventually (eventually) a confession
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65





	Witticisms

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t entirely serious but it isn’t crack and I have no clue how to tag that. I debated crack treated seriously for a while and ultimately decided against it, but just as some clarification
> 
> Anyways, Sorry yall I’m back on my bullshit. This started serious and ended when I got bored and just sort of threw another thousand words into the document. It’s a little messy but at this point I’m just here to have fun and fun is melodrama and dumb emotions and awkward wordplay that I typed up on my phone whenever the urge struck me, I guess. I laughed at some of the lines in this. The _drama_. The _exaggeration_. I need to write more of Kuroo

_ Upper right shoulder, lower right forearm, the bend of his elbow _

Kuroo shifts side-to-side, legs kicked up over the arm of the couch and hanging over the other side. His left arm is smashed between his body and the back cushions, and his right is pressed up against Kenma. And each point of contact is buzzing, and each brush of skin to cotton or skin to soft fleece or skin to skin rends his heartstrings to bits; this is no new development. He has bandaids printed with cartoon cats stuck all along his spine. He’s more torn-open cardboard box and colorful strips of waxy paper than any sort of definitive  _ person, _ for all that he’s endured.

And Kuroo, with his heart all wrapped in plastic and his head wrapped up in thoughts of  _ this  _ and  _ that  _ and (most importantly)  _ this  _ again, is growing very confused. Kenma had settled next to him not thirty seconds ago, had tugged his DS from where it charged on the kitchen counter and then flipped it open immediately, walking over to the couch with his eyes set sharp on the screen and his thumbs already tap-tap-tapping away as he nudged Kuroo to the side and sat down.

There’s nothing odd about that. Nothing strange, nothing out of place; but still Kuroo feels something shifting in his stomach, hears again the discordant flicks of his blood playing off of his veins as his heart begins to race. He is slack-jawed and his thought process has begun to lack its usual sort of one-two-three, bullet-pointed logic and is instead flying violently off track and railing on and on about  _ KenmaKenmaKenma.  _

Kenma just got out of the shower. Kenma’s hair is damp, hanging straight as a board down either side of his face, black at the roots bleeding into brown at the scalp and trickling down into dark-gold just beneath his shoulders. Kenma is holding himself strong near his center even as his shoulders wobble with poorly disguised fatigue, the mark of one too many nights spent wide, wide awake. Kenma’s skin is warm still- odd for him, as he often runs cold- and soft in the way that post-shower skin tends to be.

That’s a very strange thing for him to think, Kuroo decides, but then maybe that would be a very strange thing for  _ anyone  _ to think and he’s giving himself more trouble than he’s worth. He’s fixating, certainly, on tiny movements like the way that Kenma’s nose scrunches when he dies again or how he turns the sound down when the baseline humming beneath the music become too harsh; beyond that even he’s focused on the light blue material of Kenma’s shirt, on how it clings to the curve of his arm and the way the faded decal sprawling over its front flakes away near its center. Kenma’s fingers curl and flex around his game, and Kuroo watches. They shift, skin and bones, over the plastic buttons, and there are little nicks and bumps and bruises all up and around his knuckles.

Kuroo swallows heavily, gulping his feelings back down his throat. Like a head held high above water, he’s lost his wits to the wind- this is, this is, a losing battle. He’s lost. He jerks his foot a bit when he realizes, accidentally bumping the DS, and then the music trills sadly and Kenma has lost too. He lets both his hands drop, glaring deadpan, and Kuroo immediately pushes all his thoughts to the side and puts on the best, most innocent smile he’s got. Kenma is unimpressed; his eyes are a very soft brown, bordering on gold when they’re lit by the light of his screen, and his pupils are tiny pricks strung up through their centers. When he frowns it’s painfully clear, done up all through his forehead and wrought right into the slump of his shoulders. For all that he is, Kenma has always been very expressive.

“You made me lose,” he says. He kicks Kuroo’s leg, and then does not move again. Knee, calf, ankle; they are touching still.

“Well now you can get more practice in,” he replies. “Build your skills up so the next fight’ll be even easier.”

There’s the telltale tilt of his mouth as Kenma slips from annoyance to exasperation. From there it’s a slippery, slippery slope to exasperated  _ fondness,  _ and Kuroo is not at all above giving Kenma a little push.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Kenma tells him. “You made me lose. You made me  _ die _ . I was about to win.”

“Well now you get to spend time with me! I’d say that’s a win!”

Kuroo realizes then, as he feels a hand press to his side and then topple him from the couch, that he may have miscalculated; prod as he might, meddle as he may, Kenma has always been willing to push him too when needed.

So he’s been pushed- and his exasperation has never been anything  _ but  _ fond so god only knows where beyond that he’s ended up- but he’s definitely on the floor. And maybe, maybe he deserved it, but it’s kind of hard to say so when his cheek is pressed up against the rough scrub of the carpet and Kenma’s gone right back to his game like he’s done  _ nothing wrong.  _ Just for that Kuroo swats at him again, halfheartedly with the arm not being used to prop himself up, and the whole time through he pushes down every single rush of  _ interest _ or  _ fascination  _ or  _ whatever the fuck it is  _ that tugs at him like a fishing hook.  _ No,  _ he tells his heart as it tries to slip out of place.  _ No,  _ he reprimands when the whirl of his thoughts takes its time to settle.  _ No,  _ he hisses to the swirl in his stomach.  _ No. _

He’s got a very certain way of thinking. He’s left no room for disturbance, no space for the unaccounted. He runs a tight ship, up between his ears. His bundles of nerves stack up into straight lines. He sits on his hands, and he sits still, and still he stays stern and stubborn and set in his ways. Nothing good comes from thoughts like these; he thinks that nothing good could ever come from something so emotionally fraught, except a ruined friendship and scores upon scores of awkward conversations. He could fuck things up, if he doesn’t tread carefully. He could screw himself over.

But he doesn’t like thinking about that. So pushing  _ all  _ of it aside Kuroo hoists himself up, hooking his elbows over the couch and grunting as he pulls himself first to his knees and then to his feet. He’s very careful to not touch at all, so he’s clung to by nothing but the short, velvety feel of the couch’s upholstery as he walks himself across the room to the DVD shelf. It lingers, lint in the grooves of his knuckles, a heavy sort of discomfort beneath his nails. He flicks away a bit of it that stuck itself stubbornly to his shorts, and he wonders if maybe he shouldn’t have just set himself and his worries and his incensed, inflamed brain aside for a moment and allowed himself a moment of contact. It would be better than this, he thinks (in a wary way, because he still doesn’t trust himself), less painful. A half-second touch wouldn’t stick to him for  _ nearly  _ as long.

His shoulder burns. Like his forearm, like the bend of his elbow.

“I’m putting on a movie,” he says, needlessly. The needles beneath his skin nibble at his nerves. Kenma says nothing.

“Do you want anything specific?”

Kenma says nothing. Kuroo waits, patient. Somewhere in between, the game’s music starts up again.

“I’m gonna choose, then.”

Nothing.

Kuroo hums deep in the back of his throat.

“It’ll be something stupid.”

Kenma turns up the volume. Kuroo huffs quietly and turns back to the shelf, idly running his nails along the edges of the DVDs and marveling at the sensation, at the  _ click-click-click  _ that drops in the spaces between the metallic clangs and sharp war cries emanating from Kenma’s game. He mulls over the choices, chooses one within the moment, and then pretends to agonize for the next five minutes in the hopes that Kenma will get frustrated at how long he’s taking and pay him  _ some  _ attention at least.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t! He keeps playing his game! All of this work Kuroo puts into doing absolutely nothing, and he gets nothing for it! 

He huffs again (for good measure and dramatic effect- there’s not much that he’s beyond) and then pulls his choice from the shelf.

“If you don’t tell me what you wanna watch next time, we’re gonna have a Shrek marathon,” he threatens as he straightens up and turns towards the television. It’s an empty threat. There’s nothing behind the words but the rattle of his affection shifting from vowel to vowel, nearly giving him away as he slides from one word to the next. Stupid  _ words _ , giving him away like that; he pushes, and his mind pushes right back, and if Kenma picks up on it, he’ll have stumbled into something he can’t talk his way out of. He’s- of all the things that he could be-  _ obvious. _

Kenma says nothing.

So Kuroo turns away grumbling and starts getting the movie up and running, working his fingers through the seam of the case and then snapping it open and pushing indents up into his thumb as he pulls the DVD from its place. It aches a bit, because the plastic has all sorts of sharp edges hidden beneath the peeling paper and the flesh of his fingers isn’t particularly strong, but it helps bring him back down to earth so he can’t muster any resentment. Maybe later, if his skin is still red and his nerves still raw, or if he’s found himself reeling and in need of an anchor; maybe later, if he’s found himself bored and hazy-eyed and in need of some activity before he spurts up everything he’s ever felt just to have something to  _ do,  _ maybe then he’ll get angry, but only if he  _ has _ too _ .  _ Only if he’s stuck in a dead-end situation. If he’s got nowhere to go.

Something like that.

In goes the DVD, and up goes the remote, and finally Kuroo manages to maneuver to the menu and press play on some old animated film they’ve watched thousands of times before. Over on the couch, Kenma dies again. He hisses softly (and the hair on the back of Kuroo’s neck stands on end) and he keeps his eyes trained on the screen (and Kuroo feels the bubbles of discomfort shiver through his skull) and then he’s walking back and they’re sitting together, and Kenma is still playing and Kuroo is still feeling less like a person and more like something waiting to happen. He’s the edge of the wall that the alley cats slink over in the dead of night. He’s a tense pile of anticipation readying for the set of words that’ll send him tumbling headfirst into action.

He’ll be waiting for a long, long time. They’ve got a movie to watch, and Kenma’s got a boss to beat, and Kuroo’s got to deal with the out-of-time rhythm his heart’s picked up. 

The movie starts, as empty and slow-moving and viciously  _ comfortable  _ as the day they first watched it, and Kuroo settles himself in for the next few hours of what’ll probably be torture. He’s not being dramatic. He’s never being dramatic. He’s only ever rational.

And it’s very rational, the way that his eyes slide from the screen to Kenma within five minutes. Rational, because it’s observation and observation is rational; rational because he’s the one who’s being thrown into waves and oceans and folds of emotion, and if to calm himself down he has to lie, than he’ll stretch across the ground without a moment’s hesitation. He doesn’t bother trying to avoid touch because that ship’s long sailed, and instead contents himself with beating back the emotions as they swell up-up- _ up  _ inside of him. When all too soon he finds himself to be too much to bear, he turns again to the movie and tries to force his way back into the story. It’s awkward, his shoulders crushed right between two major plot points, and he can’t quite absorb the storyline the way that he wishes he could, but he tries. He tries. He should have chosen something less familiar, more jarring; that would have kept his attention.

But it’s too late now. So restless he watches, and his eyes bounce around the room and his leg bounces up and down and his thoughts bounce from  _ this  _ to  _ that  _ and back to  _ this  _ again- he’s right back where he started.

There’s no relief for the roil in his stomach or the ache in his bones, for the next twenty minutes. By then things are in full swing- or as much as they can be with this movie, which inches along like that earthworm he found once on a hiking trip. Kenma hadn’t liked  _ that  _ at all. He seems much more willing to put up with the movie than with Kuroo’s bizarre fascination with weird looking animals.

Which is fair.

So there they are, twenty-five minutes in, Kuroo attempting to fossilize within himself and Kenma having put down his game not thirty seconds ago. Kuroo’s interest tries to prickle at that; he tells it to mind it’s own fucking business. It doesn’t. He doesn’t. He never does. He likes to poke at things that he probably shouldn’t- it’s how he got the faded scar above his left knee, that old and well-worn but still clear as day fear of holes in the ground, and his constant, visceral dislike of small rodents, which is unfortunate because as far as weird looking animals go small rodents are fucking  _ far  _ up there. 

But just like that day when he took up a branch into the warmth of his hand, when he held it beneath the bandages that banded together over his knuckles as the sun shone hot behind the clouds and Kenma proclaimed that this was a  _ really dumb idea _ \- just like then, when the crickets had chirped in unending lines and he himself had long gone mindless and dumb, he can’t begrudge himself a little curiosity. No matter what he pretends, it’s not in his nature to let things lie; he can push back or he can trudge forward, but he has to do  _ something. _

Curiosity and cats and so on and on and on.

There’s also, though, that little bit about  _ satisfaction  _ tacked to the end there which he’s used time and time again to justify impulse.  _ Yes,  _ he accidentally made that small animal really, really mad, and  _ yes  _ he almost set the microwave on fire that one time, but now he knows that some things are best approached with caution and others with some basic common sense. And  _ yes  _ he’s about to poke the sleeping bear- he’s about to trample over the paws of the sleeping bear- but it’s not like he runs the risk of setting anything on fire here. There’s nothing nearby that burns; and as for common sense, he can allow a little leeway just this once.

With that in mind, he lets himself look.

He does try to be subtle at first. Then when it becomes clear that Kenma’s absorbed in the movie, he doesn’t even bother with that, instead just sitting and staring and  _ sitting  _ and  _ staring  _ and existing but not doing a very good job of it. If he’s got a way of saying things and he’s got things to say, then he really should be  _ saying  _ them, but here they are; quiet, but for the dialogue onscreen, burning softly beneath their skin touching at the hip and shoulder and all along the seam that keeps Kuroo whole. The stitches that lash his mouth to his brain are coming loose, and all because Kenma looks really… content right now. Happy.

And that makes Kuroo happy.

He’d like to stay that way; happy and quiet about it, unobtrusive and  _ not _ ruining his relationship with his best friend because he developed some dumb feelings.

But he’s also staring still, and he’s  _ obvious  _ and Kenma’s observant. It’s a bad combination. It’s- knowing Kenma as he does- probably a little overwhelming.

He’s not surprised, then, when Kenma’s eyes- now dominated by the saucer-like spreading of his pupil- flick back down to his game, and moments later the strings start soaring and the drums start beating and the repeated voiceovers kick into action.

“Is something bothering you?” Kenma asks. He doesn’t look up, but he’s tensed in on himself, elbows drawn to his sides and shins pressing harder into Kuroo’s hip in the awkward way that they do when Kenma’s trying for reassurance. Kuroo likes the pressure- it helps him think, helps him feel like his soul’s tethering back to his body. He’s more grounded like this. It’s nice. But he’s also all shaken up like a soda bottle turned on his head, filled with fuzz where he once thought clearly and fizzling out in terms of determination, because he’s managed to throw himself into a situation that he’s been trying (however halfheartedly) to avoid for these these past few hours. He wonders what gave him away; the voice, the tone, the movie? The touching, the staring, the stumbling? 

“So?” Kenma repeats, putting an end to Kuroo’s internal mumbling. “Is there something bothering you?”

Kuroo gathers up his courage. Then he throws it all away and smiles the best he can.

“Nope,” he says.

“Bullshit.”

Kuroo winces. “Ouch. Could you be a little nicer about it?”

“If I were nicer, you’d never talk about anything that bothers you.” He kicks Kuroo’s shin again. “You haven’t been talking at  _ all _ . You always talk during movies. So something’s wrong, and this would be a lot easier if you would just  _ tell _ me.”

“Well.” Kuroo coughs, feeling himself tilting into a panic and in full damage control mode because of it. Sure it’s one thing to think that he’ll never want to say anything to Kenma at all, but it’s another thing entirely to be  _ this  _ close to being found out. The words are there; he’s been planning them out for years. It would be easy, very  _ easy  _ to just push them up and through his teeth. Let them out, free up his chest, breathe easy for the moment or two it takes Kenma to process.

And then deal with the inevitable consequences.

There they go again, skittering to the back of his head. He can hardly speak at all anymore, and this is  _ exhausting. _

“It’s nothing,” he insists. “I’ve got a math test on Monday. I’m just worrying about that.”

Kenma looks at him, game forgotten and eyes flat. “It’s  _ summer _ ,” he says, point-blank.

So it is.

“Well my job-“

“You don’t work.”

“Bokuto-“

“Has been texting me nonstop for the past two hours. He’s fine.”

Kuroo clears his throat. Is it too late to go back to the silence? He was good at that.

“Akaashi…?” he ventures hesitantly.

“You’re not even trying anymore,” Kenma huffs. He stops there for a moment, mouth twisting and eyes screwing up around their corners like he’s just been made to look at something very unpleasant. When he speaks next, he’s stilted; each syllable sounds like it’s clawing its way up his throat, dragging tooth and nail over his tongue. “Look, if you really don’t wanna tell me just say so and I’ll leave it alone.”

He means it- Kenma doesn’t say things that he doesn’t mean- but he’s also hunched over, mumbling through the hair that’s fallen to cover his face as he fiddles at the buttons of his game with one hand and moves the other to tug at the hem of his shirt, looking very uncomfortable and very embarrassed and all sorts of other things that Kuroo would rather not be the cause of. But can he really throw away one, two, three years of keeping his feelings all under wraps, of holding himself close and guarded and set in the center of a maze of his own making? Can he lead himself out, footsteps heavy and measured as he feels the brick crumble like conviction beneath his fingertips? All this time he’s spent locked up on the inside, all these years wound up tight enough to snap, and he’s going to release everything here? Now? Who is he going to  _ be,  _ if not someone denying half of himself?

Can he really give up that easily, all because Kenma looks a little unhappy?

… 

Well  _ yeah. _

So he’s easily swayed. So he’s a little weak, a little predictable. He’s not hurting anyone, not anyone but himself, and that’s allowed. 

But also unnecessary.

“Well,” he begins, pushing down the first wave of panic. He started- he’s  _ really going for it.  _ No going back now, not if he ever wants to sleep at night. “I like you. A lot. And I understand if you don’t feel the same way, but I figured I should tell you at least.” 

And  _ there  _ it fucking is. 

The  _ big  _ one. The thing that’s been weighing in the back of his mind and tugging him softly through the days, a whisper on a wave of emotion that’s been  _ crashing  _ and  _ rushing  _ and  _ thrumming  _ through him; here he is now, out in the open, stomach squelching away and heart clambering up into his throat. It makes its home behind his eyes as Kenma blinks once, slowly, rumbling beats of  _ onetwoonetwoone _ through to the tips of his fingers. The couch has gone rough beneath him, the ceiling stark above; this is a big, big deal, and he’s said as much and he’s known as much and Kenma will reply in kind because-

“Oh. Is that all?” Kenma says, not waiting for Kuroo’s thoughts to settle. “Alright then. I like you too.”

Um? Because?

Kuroo blinks.

“Ah. Shit. Thanks, I guess.”

The look Kenma gives him could burn a hole straight through his head.

“Thanks?” he repeats disbelievingly. He’s smiling, though, and Kuroo feels a little thrill. Then a big thrill. He fucking  _ did  _ it.

“Yes,” Kuroo says, because he’s stupidly  _ stupid  _ and stupidly  _ happy  _ and not exactly good with words at the moment. He feels like his brain’s been replaced with the same rushed, steady beat of his heart; he's skipped over the fear and the elation and gone straight to mush. A very, very,  _ very  _ happy, questionably sentient pile of mush. “Thanks.”

“Oh my god,” Kenma snorts. “I chose to put up with this. Willingly.”

“And there’s no takebacks!” Kuroo singsongs. Up go his arms, because it feels right and he’s recently decided that maybe acting on feeling isn’t such a bad thing after all. “You’re  _ stuck  _ with me now. You said you liked me. Now we’re going to date, and I’m going to be mushy and romantic, and there will be  _ flowers  _ and  _ chocolates  _ and you won’t push me off of couches anymore because you  _ like  _ me.”

“That’s optimistic. I’ll push you off of plenty of couches, whether we’re dating or not,” Kenma grumbles. But it’s _affectionate. _It’s affectionate! It even comes with a nudge to his leg and a poke at his side and a bigger smile than the one before! 

“And there’s no need to be so annoying about it,” Kenma continues with a (good natured- Kuroo can tell) grumble. “What would we do with flowers anyways? Or chocolate? You’re lactose intolerant.”

“It's the principle of the matter.”

Kenma looks at him. It’s flat; it’s detached. Kuroo grins back, shifting beneath the combined weight of their expressions.

“You  _ liiiiikkkkee  _ me,” he crows after a few moments of silence, because Kenma likes him and he doesn’t want anyone to forget it. He’s already wondering about how they should announce it. He’s thinking skywriting.

“I know. I said so,” Kenma huffs. Then he glares again, embarrassed, but there’s still red in his cheeks and a glint in his eye so Kuroo can’t find it anywhere inside of himself to be intimidated. Kenma’s going to be disappointed about that; he’s spent a while perfecting those glares. 

But that doesn’t matter right now. Because ten seconds later he drops the expression and picks up his game, and by the time the round starts again he’s managed to hook one of his legs around Kuroo’s and press their sides together in a rare display of affection. It’s warm, and Kuroo feels so  _ real  _ in the moment; so present on the couch, wrapped up in the fuzzy feeling that’s been working up and down his spine since he learned that his feelings were reciprocated. He won’t be able to concentrate on the movie for the rest of the night- he won’t be able to concentrate on much of anything- but he thinks that it’s worth it.

And when Kenma finally beats the level and lets out a little hiss of excitement, gently shaking against Kuroo’s side and then promptly pressing their hands together, he  _ knows  _ that it is.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed!! I love hearing from you guys!!
> 
> Anyways this wasn’t meant to end happily but I couldn’t pass it up, so if this seems a little disjointed it’s probably because I decided to shift everything like halfway through and didn’t bother to fix the start. I’ve been lazy lately, especially regarding writing, but I’m hoping that it’s just the continuation of my like… five month slump and I’ll come out the other side sooner or later


End file.
